After Protests of "Unlivable" Conditions, New York Landlords Will Meet With Residents of Shaker Square Apartments

The New York-based owners of two Cleveland properties that residents say have been dangerously neglected will meet with tenants in person on February 22.

The visit comes after Ward 4 Councilwoman Deborah Gray traveled to New York to personally confront the owners after repeatedly trying and failing to speak with them by phone.

“I’m an activist by heart,” Gray said after a city council meeting Monday. “Sometimes you just get fed up and you can’t always wait for people to come to you.”

Residents have complained of black mold, water leaks, electrical problems and dangerous lack of heating in freezing temperatures, which Council president Blaine Griffin characterized as "eviction by neglect".


Since the Shaker Heights Apartment Owner LLC, majority owned by the Chetrit family, bought the properties in February of 2022 for $12.4 million, residents say it has been unresponsive to their complaints of dire living conditions. The buildings in the Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood have 250 affordably priced units.

“We have been in and out of that office,” said resident Chimene Anderson at a news conference on January 30. “We have been lied to, deceived, all they say is, ‘It’s going to be fixed. We have the plumber coming, the heating people coming, it’s going to be ready.’’

At the same news conference, Gray announced she would be traveling to the company’s office in New York after failing to engage the owners by phone.

“I called a couple of times and they didn’t respond but I let them know I’d be in New York soon, regardless of if they called me or not, but when I got there we just happened to run into the secretary in the lobby,” said Gray of her trip. “20 minutes after that I got a phone call and they said they heard I was in town and asked me if I was still there. They invited me to come to the building to have a conversation about the tenants and about their decision to come to Cleveland on February 22.”

Many of the problems predate Shaker Heights Owner LLC’s acquisition of the properties, but saw no improvement with the change in ownership. The co-owner that Gray met said they’d hired property management company, Friedman Communities, to maintain the buildings but apparently did not check in on the properties.

“All in all, you bought the violations, you should have been on top of the situation,” Gray said.

The co-owner also told Gray they flew in to visit the properties in January, though Gray and residents were seemingly unaware of this visit.

Gray said the owners will meet with tenants personally. “I said, ‘You’re going to have a meeting with the tenants only. You need to sit down, talk with them, hear what they’re been going through for them to understand why you took so long even though you acquired [the property] in February of 2022.'"

“A whole year they’ve been dealing with this," Gray said. "Whoever the other owner was, shame on them, but now since you’ve got it it took you a whole year just to surface.”

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